But it would be a bother for him to put back together and more awkward now to carry, and he was cross with Dolores for not having said something before Colette had had time to take the thing apart. But Dolores had been almost entirely silent on the subject of their tenant. Even when he’d said to her that he’d bring the letter up to the cottage and introduce himself, she’d turned to the sink and said nothing, picked up the grill and started scrubbing furiously at it.
Two weeks since Colette had moved in and he’d been putting off this visit. He knew when she was around because her car was parked at the front of the cottage, and if they happened to spot each other leaving the house she’d raise a hand to him. But he had only a vague awareness of who she was – an artist of some kind, married to a rich man, but a rich man who wouldn’t say boo to a goose. They were separated – that much he knew – but what exactly she was doing living in his cottage was unclear to him. Still, the place would have lain empty until the summer, and with another child on the way the money would come in handy.
‘I’ll go and get the van,’ he said. ‘Bring all of this down to the garage in one go.’
But he could tell she wasn’t listening to him. She’d seated herself at the table and opened the letter and was already engaged by whatever was written on those pages. The torn envelope lay discarded on the table and he noticed she’d put a new oilcloth on it, with a pattern of yellow pears. The place was hers now. Photos stuck to the fridge and books stacked everywhere, on chairs and on the sideboard. He thought she might air the place a bit to get rid of the smell of cigarettes. The floor too could have done with a good sweep, and there were a fair few empty wine bottles standing beside the bin.
A cold draught passed through the room and the envelope skittered across the table.
‘How’s the heating?’ he asked. He stepped towards the radiator and touched the cool metal. It hung on the wall just beside the window looking out across the bay. The tide was high, almost up to the sand dunes, straining to draw the coastline in, then falling back on itself, exhausted.
‘You’d never get bored of that, would you?’ he said.
‘What?’ she asked, laying the letter down. She placed her feet upon the chair in front of her and her long woollen skirt slid up her shins. She flexed her toes. He watched her touch her fingertips to her bottom lip like something very tender was held there.
‘The view – you’d never get bored of looking at it.’
‘No, Donal, you certainly wouldn’t,’ she said.
‘Bad news?’ he asked, and right away he was sorry he’d said it. He lowered himself onto his knees and began turning the knob on the radiator.
‘Will you have tea, Donal?’ she asked, rising from her chair and walking to the sideboard. He watched the dirty soles of her otherwise white feet flashing at him as she crossed the floor. And he remembered where he had seen her before – at a play at the Community Centre, one of the silly things they did at Christmas and everyone had to go and you had to pay £10 for a video of it. And his daughter had danced with a flurry of snowflakes and afterwards Colette had ushered them back onto the stage – and she was barefoot. And he had thought maybe that was to bring herself down to the height of the children, but still she’d looked so tall beside them. And he’d kept thinking what an eccentric thing that was to do. And Dolores had said on the way home in the car, ‘With all the money Shaun Crowley has he should buy his wife a pair of shoes.’
‘I won’t stay for tea, Colette,’ he said. ‘I’ll just bleed this for you and I’ll hit the road.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘The radiator – it’s not coming up to temperature,’ he said. ‘It needs to be bled.’
‘Oh, right,’ she said.
‘Had you not noticed they weren’t giving out much heat?’
‘I hadn’t, I suppose. I’ve barely had them on.’
‘Well, you’ll need them soon,’ he said. ‘Have you got an old rag lying around?’
She brought him a tea towel. He wrapped it around the base of the pipe. As he turned the little key in the knob, he saw the oily liquid pour down the pipe and soak into the cloth. ‘I’ll just do the one in the bedroom for you and I’ll be on my way,’ he said.
‘Thanks, Donal.’
He walked towards the bedroom door. ‘Do you mind?’ he said, placing his fingers on the handle.
‘Not at all. Go ahead,’ she said.
Her sheets were so tangled they made one long braid that ran the length of the bed. The fitted sheet had come loose, exposing the yellowing mattress beneath. On the floor was another stack of books so high that it acted as a kind of bedside table where an ashtray rested, with two white cigarette butts curled up beside each other like maggots. The room was not so different from Madeleine’s, with garments spilling from drawers and the top of the dresser covered in sprays and bottles. There was a jewellery tree with necklaces and bracelets hanging there, and he touched a silver bangle and watched it rock gently. The window looked directly at the front of his own home and he was struck by how empty it looked, the windows glaring back at him, giving nothing of the interior away, and really you could think that there was no one at all living there. And he felt her eyes on him then but when he turned around, she was reading that letter.
He bled the radiator and walked back to the kitchen. She was at the table again, her black hair falling down the back of the chair. She reached her hand around and drew her hair aside, just an inch, so that he could see where her jumper hung loose and the soft curve of her shoulder was exposed to him. It was a strange gesture, the way you might move a curtain aside to peer out. She held her hand there, pressing her hair to the back of her neck, head bowed.
‘How are your children, Donal?’
There was something so direct about the way she asked the question that he wondered if she knew Dolores was pregnant. But Dolores was barely showing yet. Had she guessed somehow? Did she expect him to make some proud announcement about it?
‘They’re grand,’ he said.
‘Madeleine’s the only one I know. She was in a play we did at the Community Centre, when she was very small. She had a sweet little voice.’
‘Snowflakes,’ he said.
‘That’s right,’ she said.
‘Oh well,’ he said, wiping his hands on the tea towel, ‘she’s thirteen now and there’s not much sweet about her.’
‘Oh!’ Colette said. She was taking a drink from her cup. Her eyes widened. ‘Is she a rebel, Donal?’
‘That might be what you’d call her, all right.’
‘Ah well, Donal, we must look after our rebels, because they’re the ones who’ll protect us in the end. I hope so at least. That’s what I’m holding out for,’ she said. ‘I have a rebel. My middle fellow – Barry. We sent him away to boarding school in Dublin and he was kicked out. He’s back at St Joseph’s now because it’s the only place that’ll have him.’
‘Well, St Joseph’s was good enough for me.’
‘Of course, Donal, I’m not saying anything about St Joseph’s. It’s a grand school and they’re great to have him. But we wanted Barry to go away and learn some independence . . . discipline. He won’t listen to me, that’s for sure. You should see how much he hates me. God, it’s extraordinary – to have all of that anger pointed towards you.’
An ecstatic smile spread across her face. He watched her eyes close slowly and as she opened them her expression had composed itself again.
‘That’s what I mean,’ she continued. ‘He won’t always hate me, it’s a phase he’s going through, and then imagine having all of that energy directed in your favour.’
He did not know what to say to that, but he could see she wasn’t waiting for a response. She was staring at a book lying open face-down on the table. Her fingertips were back to her lips again but this time they covered her whole mouth like she was trying to stop herself from saying something.
